How Yin-Yang Philosphy Can Benefit Your Body

If the last post about duality and yin-yang philosophy seemed a little out of left field, this next post should bring it all together.

Yin and Yang are two opposite aspects of the same thing, and one of the main goals of Traditional Oriental Medicine is to bring opposites into balance. All conditions that pass through the clinic are differentiated in terms of the Eight Principles, which are four pairs of opposites that help the health care provider determine a course of treatment that is safe, effective and won't make the condition worse.

The first pair of principles is interior versus exterior, or did the condition originate in the environment or did it arise because of an internal imbalance. Is the patient sneezing because of an external pathogen like a bacteria (common cold) or because of an immune system imbalance (allergy)? Is their digestive disturbance the result of food poisoning, or a chronic condition like IBS?

The second pair of principles is cold versus heat. This means, is the condition cold in nature or hot in nature. Is the knee pain caused by coldness and stiffness, or is it red ans swollen? Is the patient sweating or do they have chills?

Why is this important? It helps you from creating more injury with your treatment. Most people have heard that ginger tea is good for stomach problems. In many cases, it is. But ginger is hot in nature, and if a patient has acid reflux, the ginger could make it worse. Peppermint, which is cold in nature, would be just the thing.

The third pair of principles is deficiency versus excess. This is a little more complicated, so bear with me. Let's take the idea of heat in the body. It can arise for a variety of reasons. A woman in her fifties might have hot flashes because of a hormonal deficiency, while someone who is overweight might feel hot because they have an excess of adipose tissue. Some treatments drain excess from the body, some nourish the body to eliminate deficiency.

The fourth and final pair of principles is yin and yang. For more information on yin and yang, refer to the last post, or look here.

I studied European herbalism for many years, and as soon as I learned these basic principles, the effectiveness of my treatments in both the European and Chinese systems improved dramatically.